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Andrew Cunanan

Andrew Phillip Cunanan (August 31 1969 – July 23, 1997) was an American serial killer who murdered at least five people, including Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin, during a three-month period in mid-1997. Cunanan's string of murders ended on July 23 of that year with his suicide by firearm. In his final years, Cunanan lived in the greater San Diego area without a job. He befriended wealthy older men and spent their money. To impress acquaintances in the local gay community he boasted about social events at clubs and often paid the check at restaurants. One millionaire friend had broken up with Cunanan in 1996, the prior year.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan (August31 1969 – July23, 1997) was an American serial killer[1] who murdered at least five people, including Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin, during a three-month period in mid-1997. Cunanan's string of murders ended on July23 of that year with his suicide by firearm.

In his final years, Cunanan lived in the greater San Diego area without a job. He befriended wealthy older men[2] and spent their money. To impress acquaintances in the local gay community he boasted about social events at clubs and often paid the check at restaurants.[3] One millionaire friend had broken up with Cunanan in 1996, the prior year.[3]

In 1981, Cunanan's father enrolled him in the independent day school, The Bishop's School, in the affluent La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, where he would go on to meet his lifelong best friend, Elizabeth Cote.[5] At school, Cunanan was remembered as being bright and very talkative, and testing with an I.Q. of 142.[6] As a teenager, however, he developed a reputation as a prolific liar given to telling fantastic tales about his family and personal life. He was also adept at changing his appearance according to what he felt was most attractive at a given moment.[5] Nonetheless, in high school he was voted ‘Least Likely to be Forgotten’.[7]

In 1988, when Andrew was 19, Modesto deserted his family and moved to the Philippines to evade arrest for embezzlement.[8] That same year, Cunanan – who identified as gay in high school and even then had liaisons with wealthy older men[8][9] – had begun frequenting local gay clubs and restaurants, and his deeply religious mother, Mary Anne, learned that Cunanan was gay.

Adult life

Collection of FBI photos showing the ease with which Cunanan could change appearance

Town and Country reported that in San Francisco, Cunanan – who also used the aliases Andrew DeSilva,[12] Lt.Cmdr. Andy Cummings, Drew Cunningham, and Curt Matthew Demaris[13] – "became a fixture in the nightlife of the Castro district, a gay neighborhood, befriending wealthy older men, and also reportedly took an interest in creating violent pornography."[5] Cunanan also socialized in the Hillcrest and La Jolla neighborhoods of San Diego, as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona, "apparently living off the largess of one wealthy patron or another,"[9] and at least in part, supporting himself by dealing drugs.[8]

In 1996, Cunanan and Norman Blachford broke up. Blachford was a wealthy older man who had been hosting and financially supporting him. Now on his own, Cunanan maxed out his credit cards.[15][7] Cunanan's friend, Jeffrey "Jeff" Trail, had told Michael Williams (Trail's former roommate) that Cunanan had resumed his prior profession of selling drugs;[16] Cunanan also began increasingly consuming them.[15]

In late April1997, Cunanan told friends he was leaving San Diego, beginning with a trip to Minneapolis to visit David Madson, 33, an up-and-coming architect and Cunanan's former lover, and their mutual friend, Jeff Trail, 28, a former US Navy officer[12] working as a district manager for a propane delivery company. Both had distanced themselves from him.[17] Trail expected Cunanan to move to San Francisco upon leaving Minneapolis. A week before Cunanan killed him, Trail had told Williams that he had had a "huge falling out" with Cunanan and "I made a lot of enemies this weekend ... I've got to get out of here. They're going to kill me."[15]

On April24, Cunanan and four friends attended a going-away party at California Cuisine, a rare occasion when Cunanan did not cover the tab.[8] On April25, Cunanan arrived in the Twin Cities and stayed at Madson's loft apartment.[7]

Murders

Jeffrey Trail

Cunanan's serial killings began in Minneapolis on April 27, 1997, with the murder of his close friend, Jeffrey Trail, a former US Navy officer and propane salesman. Following an argument, Cunanan beat Trail to death with a claw hammer and left his body rolled in a rug in a loft apartment belonging to architect David Madson.[3]

David Madson

Madson, who had once been Cunanan's boyfriend, was his second murder victim; Madson's body was found on the east shore of Rush Lake near Rush City, Minnesota, on May 3, with gunshot wounds to the head and back from a pistol Cunanan had taken from the home of his first victim, Jeff Trail.[18][19]

Lee Miglin

Cunanan next drove to Chicago and killed 72year-old Lee Miglin, a prominent real estate developer, on May 4. Cunanan bound Miglin's hands and feet and wrapped his head with duct tape. He then stabbed Miglin over 20times with a screwdriver and cut open his throat with a hacksaw.[20] Following this murder, Cunanan became the 449th fugitive in the United States to be listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

While the manhunt unsuccessfully focused on Reese's stolen truck, which Cunanan still had, he "hid in plain sight" in Miami Beach, Florida for twomonths.[21] Cunanan even used his own name to pawn a stolen item, despite knowing that police routinely review pawn shop records.[22]

Gianni Versace

On July 15, Cunanan murdered Italian fashion designer, Gianni Versace, shooting him twice on the front stairway of his Miami Beach mansion, Casa Casuarina.[23] A witness attempted to pursue Cunanan, but was unable to catch him.

Death

In the upstairs bedroom of a Miami Beach houseboat on July 23, eight days after killing Versace and with law enforcement hot on his trail, Cunanan killed himself with a gunshot through the mouth.[25] Cunanan used a .40 S&W caliber Taurus PT100semi-automatic pistol which he had stolen from Jeff Trail, the first of his five victims, to commit suicide with — the same gun he used to kill Madson, Reese, and Versace.[10][22][26]

Motive

Cunanan's motivation remains unknown. At the time of the murders, there was extensive public and press speculation that tied the crimes to Cunanan's alleged discovery that he was HIV positive;[28] however, an autopsy found him to be HIV negative.[29][30]

Although police searched the houseboat where Cunanan died, he left no suicide note and few personal belongings,[2] surprising investigators, given his reputation for acquiring money and expensive possessions from wealthy older men.[2] Police considered few of the findings to be of note, except multiple tubes of hydrocortisone cream and a fairly extensive collection of fiction by C. S. Lewis.[2][31][32]

The television series Mugshots on Court TV (now TruTV) released an episode covering Cunanan, titled "Andrew Cunanan - The Versace Killer".[36]

Another true-crime show, Six Degrees Of Murder, featured Cunanan's crimes in "The Body in the Rug," the premiere episode of its first season, when it premiered on Investigation Discovery on July 13, 2016.[citation needed]